The Beauty of Flat Light in Landscape Photography

We often talk about finding dramatic light in landscape photography that showers the scene in contrast and creates an interplay of light and shadows that generates visual interest. But flat light can be just as effective in its own way, and this great video explores both how and why that's the case.

Coming to you from Adam Gibbs, this excellent video explores the idea of using flat light in landscape photography. I always appreciate Gibbs' work, as it's noticeably different from a lot of the landscape photos I often see. By embracing flat light, Gibbs tends to rely less on playing light and shadows off one another and more on finding interesting interplay between colors, textures, and patterns. This tends to create images that are either abstract or very multidimensional and thus, that force the viewer to stop and carefully examine what's in front of them. It's definitely a different way of approaching the genre and one that's well worth taking the time to learn about, as it'll help you hone your eye and find more suitable subjects.

3 Comments

Adam Gibbs is one of the more talented landscape photographers out there today and anyone in this nitch needs to view his channel. I find him entertaining and all his videos are done in a professional manner. Almost everyone you can catch him complaining about the light and yet he always seems to nail it.

Adam Gibbs is a master of pulling amazing comps out of what seems like chaos. Nearly every one of his YouTube videos is like a mini-workshop where he takes viewers along with him and lets them into his thought process as he composes and later processes his images. His approach allows him to avoid being trite—no "Let's discuss the rule of thirds" vids from him; and he manages to communicate with the viewer in a way that comes across as completely authentic. I don't think there is a YouTube channel I like better.